I Love Marking
Spent a big chunck of yesterday and today marking first year programming work. And loving it! Marking is usually hard work. Grinding through item after item in my office. But the marking I've just been doing is different. I've been sitting down watching students show of code that they have written. And this has been really fun. Firstly, I've been able to put faces to names I've seen on submissions and forum posts. Secondly there is some neat stuff out there. I changed the way that the marking works this year, and added 20% for "extras". If you just want to pass the course you can do just that, and aim for the spec. But if you want to impress there is 20% reserved in the marking scheme just for that. Some students took to soft option and went for the spec. Nothing wrong with that. Others took got the bit between their teeth and turned out some superb stuff, with extra features including sound effects, graphical user interfaces, you name it.
This is the first time that I've marked a first year programming assignment this way. But it is most definitely not the last. We are going to showcase some of the really hot stuff on the course web pages.